Getting Rid of Stuff, Metamorphic, and Government as a Startup

This week was an interesting week for me. Although there was no geographical travel, there was a great deal of psychological travel and with that I bring you “TK Thoughts of the Week”:

1. This week the house that I have lived in for 13 years went for sale. It is too big as the family begins to scatter the planet on their own journeys. Part of selling any house that you have lived in that long is getting rid of all of the stuff you have been storing. It is amazing the crap that you keep and most of the time you never even knew you had. It has been a bittersweet process and I must admit that it is one that makes me feel a little like the last scene of Citizen Kane. I am left mumbling “Rosebud” as my lifelong collection of junk is given/thrown away. The next phase of my life will probably have me not owning any real estate and minimizing the stuff that I do own. The hope is that it leaves me feeling liberated, but right now I must admit that it only leaves me feeling naked.
2. Part of the metamorphic process that has been going on in my life also involves my connections to people. This week I spent time with a person who I see all of the time, but really don’t often get to connect with them. I wanted to make sure I took the time to connect with this person and really explain to he/she what I thought of him/her as a person (all of it was positive, btw). I have been trying lately to slow down and connect with people on an individual basis. Someone told me recently that I had two choices of what to do with my life. I could impact lots of people in a small way or I could impact a few people in a huge way. Most of my life I have tried to do both, with low success at either. I have decided to do the latter and see if that can really be impactful to a small group of people. I will use my honest and transparent approach to let people know what I really think about them, but I will do this only with a super small circle of people.
3. What I want from government is what I want from a great early stage startup. I want to hear a president say that we are going to tackle the insanely hard problems that do not have a correct answer. Tell me that we are going to try and do this with four or five solutions that we know will probably fail. But we are going to move fast. React quickly with the knowledge we gain and try again. We will do all of it without spin and we will openly acknowledge our failures. Gun violence, healthcare, social security, and foreign policy do not have right answers. But sitting around and just talking about them and pointing fingers only disenfranchises the people who could actually be useful in government.

May your weekend be filled with fast horses, lots of smiles, and a touch of bourbon.